


Ex Libris

by matahariherself



Series: The Ties That Bind Us [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Be-bop, Crowley has no concept of personal space, Crowley is not soft, Gen, M/M, Original Character(s), The Arrangement (Good Omens), soft is a four letter word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 20:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30060870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matahariherself/pseuds/matahariherself
Summary: When a rare book is stolen from Lucifer himself, Crowley is put on the case. He must succeed or face dire consequences. A teenage girl gets tangled up in the mission, and Aziraphale insists on helping her, much to Crowley's annoyance.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Ties That Bind Us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182923
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Ex Libris

In retrospect, the Bluetooth shower speaker had been a terrible idea. It had seemed fun in the adverts, with attractive young people singing along to their favorite music while they shampooed their hair, but now Crowley stood beneath the spray listening to Beelzebub give him orders. It was awkward, being naked in front of Beelzebub. She couldn’t see him, of course, but he wasn’t used to speaking to his superiors naked. Crowley fought the urge to cover his bits.

“The Grigorian Manuscript hazzz been stolen from Lucifer himself,” Beelzebub said. “As you can imagine, Our Lord is not best pleased.”

“Oh… That’s not good,” Crowley said. It was, in fact, terrible. “Wait, but it’s not much use to demons, only humans, and it’s written in Grigorian, yeah? So a human wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, right?”

“Unless they have the codex,” Beelzebub said. “Which there izzz one copy of on earth, though it wazzz misplaced in the 1800s.”

“Oh. Right. The codex.” If there was one person Crowley really hated right now, it was John Dee. “When did the book go missing?”

“Five dayzzz ago,” Beelzebub said. “It izzz somewhere in England. I’ve sent four demons out to find it. None of them have come back. My flies have searched for them, but there’zzz no trace of them at all.”

Crowley closed his eyes as grave realization dawned. “Holy water, then?”

“That’s what Hastur and I believe. That’zzz why I’m calling. If whoever stole the book izzz fighting with holy water, then it should be no problem for you.”

 _Fuck_ , Crowley thought. He knew that execution trick was going to come back to bite him the arse one of these days, and here it was, with its teeth in his buttocks. “Of course! No problem!” he said, with mock confidence. “Holy water? Why, that’s nothing to me!”

“Glad to hear it, Crowley,” Beelzebub continued. “You don’t want to fuck thizzz up. We may not be able to execute you, but you can certainly be relocated.  
Back to headquarterzzz."

“Er, right,” Crowley said. 

" _Permanently_.”

“Well, I’m on it. The game is afoot. Allons-y.” The call disconnected and returned him to his regularly scheduled Lou Reed.

Crowley turned off the faucet and wrapped a towel around his waist. He grabbed his cell phone. 

The Grigorian Codex might have been misplaced in the 1800s, but Crowley knew exactly where it was today. He’d wager anyone else in the business of old and rare occult books also knew who to call. Aziraphale would never part with it, that wasn’t even a question, but if anyone called the bookshop asking, Crowley needed to know who they were.

“Argh, pick up the phone!” Crowley growled. 

Aziraphale wasn’t answering. 

Crowley snapped his fingers and clothing appeared as he walked out the door. Fine, he’d just go over there. 

_Better to talk in person, anyway_ , he thought. There was no room for failure here. If the big man himself was unhappy, Hell absolutely would make good on that threat to relocate him. Crowley would make sure the codex was safe, locate the missing manuscript, make his boss happy, and kill absolutely anyone who got in his way. Aside from the fact that he enjoyed earth immensely and would miss a great number of things, there was one thing he couldn’t lose, no matter what: Aziraphale.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my lovely beta, Gul!
> 
> Also, "Grigorian" is not "Gregorian", that will be explained in the next chapter.


End file.
